Permanent molds are used for producing solid shapes in a continuous casting process. The permanent mold is one of the most important components in a continuous casting installation. Solidification of the melt begins in the permanent mold. In principle, the structure is made up of an outer steel construction and the actual forming part of the mold, the mold body. The mold body is generally made almost exclusive of copper or a copper alloy. For applications in which high or the highest thermal stresses appear, CuAg substances or CuCrZr substances are used.
Permanent molds are supposed to withdraw heat from the molten metal, and make possible a solidification all the way through the strand by way of the strand shell that forms at the beginning. In the casting process, especially in the area of the casting level of the permanent mold body, large quantities of heat have to be removed from the melt. The permanent mold body is cooled because, above all, at high casting speeds, there is a danger that, in this context, on a local basis, the permissible thermal load of the permanent mold material is exceeded. In this connection, an effort is made to cool the casting side of the permanent mold body to the largest extent and as homogeneously as possible.
Consistent with the disclosure of German Patent No. 41 27 333 C2, a continuous casting permanent mold is a part of the related art whose form wall is furnished with continuous cylindrical cooling water lines connected to a cooling water circulation.
In the range of the highest temperature weighting, the cross sectional areas of the cooling water lines are reduced by displacement rods in order to increase the flow speed of the cooling water. It is intended to thereby improve the dissipation of heat in the area of the highest temperature weighting and to reduce the wall temperature.
In order to counter the higher heat input, appearing at the broad face walls of the permanent mold body, with an even higher cooling effect, it is proposed in EP 0 931 609 A1 to position more closely the cooling lines, from place to place. The result is that an increased cooling effect is created over the entire height of the permanent mold.
However, the requirement of setting a cooling effect adjusted to certain zones of the permanent mold, such as the casting level, can only be achieved in a limited way.
Therefore, starting from the related art, an object of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention is to provide a liquid-cooled permanent mold in which a horizontally and vertically adjusted cooling effect is possible.